Daily: November 2007 Archives

I got a Christmas tree today. A real one. It's the first time I've ever had a real Christmas tree in my apartment.

But it's not what you probably picture. It's only about 3 feet tall, as if someone simply lopped off the tip top of a normal Christmas tree. It made me wonder if there is a forest somewhere full of Christmas trees without tops. Think about it. Wouldn't that be odd?

I bought a string of lights and some ornaments, and it is awesome. Just looking at it makes me happy. I told my mom about it while talking to her on the phone tonight, and she said it's still too early for Christmas stuff. But I like to enjoy the decorations for as long as possible (while still refusing to put anything up before Thanksgiving), and didn't want to wait any longer.

Thus, today I got a Christmas tree.

When I said I got a blister on my pinky from playing Guitar Hero, I was mostly kidding. But now I have what is suspected to be a legitimate Guitar Hero injury. How sad is that? My thumb has been aching since yesterday. The only real cause I can guess is the marathon of Guitar Hero played after the Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. Last year Jose and I dominated the foosball table; this year we dominated the axe.

Seriously. My thumb hurts. Not even kidding. Pretty pathetic.

It was a great holiday in Corpus Christi and I am happy to have spent it with Jose's family for the second year in a row. The last time I went home for Thanksgiving was in 2000 -- we long ago decided that it doesn't really make sense for me to buy a plane ticket home for three days when I can save the money and time to allow me to go home for a longer stay at Christmas, only a month later -- and I had gotten accustomed to spending the holiday weekend alone. Running the turkey trot, meeting friends for a good meal, but then spending the rest of the weekend doing my own thing. It worked for me, but I must admit that it is nice to have a place to go once again. I do miss the turkey trot, but Jose's family welcomes me with open arms, and they are endlessly entertaining. There are so many of them, but this year I kept almost everyone straight.

After spending a few days with Jose's family, I can't wait to head to Charlotte to see my own family for Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in blogger-ville! It's been a nice day in Corpus. Cloudy and cold, but nice all the same. I managed to avoid completely gorging myself on all the good food, which is always an accomplishment, and I have successfully schooled most of Jose's cousins in Guitar Hero. No one ever expects me to actually be good at it, but I can play at least half the songs on expert level. Heh heh heh.

Food and Guitar Hero. Yep, it's been a good holiday.

Wonder what I should look for at Black Friday shopping tomorrow...? No one really needs anything but everyone wants to go anyone. I must say I don't totally understand that.

Hope everyone else had a great day!

The Xterra rode into the night and the cold black front followed.

Jose and I are headed south on Highway 59, headed to spend Thanksgiving in Corpus Christi with his family. (Blogging from the iPhone! Love it!) There is a spectacular lightning show going on outside my window in the towering clouds of the cold front that is pushing through this area tonight. The squall line is so clear and defined that it reminds me of photos of the inside of the eye of hurricane.

At first the light was diffuse, mere flashes flickering among the clouds. But as it gets closer, I can see huge spider webs, fingers of electricity working their way from cloud to cloud. The end of the clouds protrude into the sky and I swear it forms the profile of a man's face. Eyebrows, nose, cheek and chin. He is coming to get us, flashing in anger and bringing the cold behind him.

Texas thunderstorms are truly like no other.

And so we race the front to see who can get to Corpus first.

I had to work the countdown test for the next launch this morning, which meant I had to be in super early. And then last week when I was asked if I could work an undock sim this afternoon because the original team was going to be on vacation already, I jumped at the chance. After all, I haven't had a rendezvous or undock sim (which are the heart of this thing I'm supposedly training for) in almost 2 months. Someone offered me a sim? I'll take it!

And that's how I ended up working from 5 a.m. until 8 p.m.

I'm tired.

A morning sim.
A cup of coffee.
An interesting crew debrief.
A bottle of water with the new Propel powder.
A walk around the pond in the sun and cool breeze.
An afternoon sim.
A chat with the FAA guys.
A bit of gossip with a coworker.
A great run with a 9:30 mile in the middle.
A grilled cheese.
A cup of hot chocolate.

Yep, it was a good day.

Jose and I were on our way to the airport at midday when I noticed that the southbound lanes of traffic were suddenly empty. Each entrance and each exit was blocked by a police car with flashing lights. We drove a mile or so -- still empty, more police cars. "What is going on?" I wondered aloud again.

A couple police motorcycles appeared on the other side of the highway, speeding along. As I watched them, I suddenly remembered Jose saying something along the lines of: "The President must be coming here -- there's a temporary flight restriction in place for tomorrow."

As we pondered this, at least a dozen police motorcycles sped by, followed by the distinctive limo with flags waving from the hood. Three limos, and behind those came black SUVs. One of them had the window rolled down, and a man rested an assault rifle against the windowsill.

And then they were gone!

That's probably the closest I'll ever get to a president -- 60 feet away on the other side of the road for the split second it took to pass me.

Discovery just landed safely in Florida after - gasp! shock! worry! - flying over a good portion of the United States and even a little bit of Canada.

It was interesting and a little frustrating to hear the media harping on the fact that the mission changed to fly a descending approach that brought the shuttle over the heart of the country (instead of the usual ascending approach that takes the shuttle mostly over the ocean before crossing Mexico, the Caribbean, and possibly the Gulf Coast). Somewhere along the way, the media got the impression that we don't usually fly descending opportunities because we want to avoid populated areas -- but that's just not true. We don't usually fly descending opportunites from high latitudes because there are high altitude clouds that form that aren't totally understood. Plus, you have to remember that the shuttle can't just come home to Florida any time it chooses -- there are only a couple chances per day, and ascending opportunities usually fit better into the flight plan and crew schedule.

But this mission did something different, and the media jumped on it. The first descending opportunity -- the first landing to cross a significant part of the country -- since the Columbia accident. Gasp! Shock! Worry!

Pam Melroy put it best yesterday when she was asked by a reporter for her thoughts on the descending approach. To paraphase her answer: "Well, I hope a lot of people get a great view as we fly by!"

I hope a lot of people did.

Ohhhhhhh, this is going to be a restless week. I can tell already. Other people's life changes always throw me into a mini-tizzy of my own, wondering whether I need to make some changes myself. It's either funny or sad -- I have a long list of things I'd like to do. Wishes and dreams and such. A lot of them are actually realistic, but I just haven't taken any action towards making them happen. I'm so dumb.

It was a long, lazy weekend for the first time in a long while. Though Jose and I usually spend the weekend hanging out, his version involves being out and about. He loves browsing at Borders, Best Buy, Fry's, and the mall. It cracks me up -- I think he likes shopping more than I do! (Actually, I love shopping, I just do 90% of mine online while he prefers to visit stores.) But this weekend, Jose was asleep all day, which left me to my own devices.

My version of hanging out is doesn't take me anywhere. It's going for a long run. It's watching hot air balloons from my balcony, and aiming my binoculars at the recently-returned-from-his-6-month-disappearance alligator that loves that one spot behind my apartment. It's staying in pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt until 7:00 last night. It's messing around for a solid 6 hours on Saturday afternoon doing nothing and everything -- laundry, straightening up, web surfing, reading -- while a marathon of "America's Next Top Model" plays on TV in the background. (So help me, I love that show and all of Tyra's absurd dramatic pauses. I think I am genetically programmed to like crappy TV. Just accept it.)

This blog entry sucks. Bye.

There is only one workplace that I know of where employees are greeted by the sights and sounds of hot air balloons as they drive in one morning each year. This is yet another reason that working at JSC is cool. After being postponed in August due to all the rain and wet weather, the Ballunar Festival has finally arrived. (I can't help but wonder if the switch to November will be permanent -- the weather is certainly far more pleasant now than it would have been in August!) I got to work right as the majority of the balloons were coming over, after having taken off all around Clear Lake with the goal of ending up at JSC. It took a lot of effort not to crash my car as I craned my neck to see the sky. There were some low clouds, which gave the whole thing an ethereal quality, as some of the balloons floated in and out of the mist.

I'm planning to hit the festival either tonight or tomorrow night to get some balloon glow photos, but it all depends on when Jose feels most awake! He's back on the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift until the shuttle undocks early Monday morning, which sort of sucks all the way around. While it is certainly cool that he is working the mission, we are sleeping on totally opposite schedules, meaning there are only a few hours each day where we are both awake and not at work, plus his hours are about as bad as you can get. No matter how much you sleep shift, it's still hard to be awake in the middle of the night.

It's National Blog Posting Month, and apparently as part of that you are supposed to make a post every day. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, since I post at least 75% of all days already. The habit is definitely ingrained, and has been since my senior year of college when I posted every day for my last 100 days as an undergraduate. (Note to self: I need to re-post that site sometime. I liked it.) Anyway, the fact that someone made up a "national" month for blog posting strikes me as strange. I don't think I'll be particularly broken up about it if I miss a day, but I'll give it a try.

After having such a good day at the half marathon, it's been another rough week of running. Last night I got so fed up that I stopped after 2.5 miles and walked the last half mile back to my car. The leg pain -- the same shin splint/Achilles tightness that has plagued me bascially every fall for the past few years -- is back. I just don't get it! It seems to somehow be tied to this time of year, which could indicate that it happens when I start to ramp up my running after a lazy summer, except I didn't have a particularly lazy summer! I've been running pretty consistently since July, and even on the bad weeks, I've run a minimum of twice a week. So why the pain? And why now? I just don't get it. It's not so bad that I can't run -- it's never so bad that I can't run -- but it's enough to bother me, force me to walk occasionally, and leave me frustrated. Last night I ran a mile, walked a minute, ran a quarter mile, walked a minute, ran 3/4 of a mile, walked a minute, ran another half mile, and gave up. The tightness and soreness never went away, plus my right hip started to ache. ARGH. The Bay Area Fit schedule calls for 10 miles tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

I realized that missing the HMSA 25K (I'll be out of town) means that I will no longer be in the running for the BARC Ironfoot and the HARRA Ironfoot. Sadness. I've never gotten one -- because I always miss a race due to travel.

Good luck to Jen and Cassie at the New York Marathon this weekend!

I know yesterday was Halloween, yet somehow I was still surprised to wake up and discover that it's November. Seriously! November? Where did the year go?

I've been playing around with Google Reader lately as a new way of reading the many blogs and news sites that I like to keep up with on a daily basis. Despite loving the web, I've never used a feed reader until now. And while it certainly makes things easier and faster -- I don't click through a long list of blogs when only a quarter of them have actually been updated -- I find that I miss the blog itself. I miss whatever template the person has used, and whatever colors used to greet me on the screen. I find that without seeing the blog template, it is not as easy for me to identify whose blog I'm actually reading.

Halloween was a rousing success, if by "rousing success" you actually mean "complete bummer." I've had class on Wednesday nights all fall, and last night was no exception. Instead of trick-or-treaters, I was learning about home video, digital audio, and watching a Science Channel show about the development of the iPod. It was interesting, but not the most exciting way to spend Halloween. When I left at 10:00 it was foggy and a little spooky though, so I'll take what I can get.

It's been sort of a weird week so far. Work is slow, with most of my officemates off working the mission, which has turned into quite the ordeal. First it was the finicky solar array rotation joint, which has been vibrating and showing electrical spikes. When the astronauts checked it out, they found metal shavings inside, apparent indication of grinding. Not good. Then, while redeploying another solar array, they found a rip in the seam of the panel. Also not good. The torn solar array has now become the biggest priority and people all over are scurrying around coming up with fixes and procedures. Nothing much for rendezvous to do except try to figure out when we're going to undock, but there's still a lot going on. To add a bit of time, they have also decided to land on a descending opportunity -- i.e. the shuttle will pass over Canada and the continental U.S. on its way to landing, instead of over the ocean, Mexico and the Gulf Coast like it does for an ascending approach. That means a lot more work for all the entry folks.

As for me, I'm just sitting around, listening. President Bush (the first one) visited Mission Control today, but I missed hearing him talk to the crew because I was in the cafeteria eating lunch. I thought he was coming later in the afternoon. Oh well. Apparently one of my coworkers got to give him a pin, and explain what we do after he stopped at our console and asked "what does rendezvous do?" Pretty cool.